


The Distance Apart

by Starshine_432



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Attempted Rape, Basically almost everything is censored, College Life, Dating, Drugs, Gen, Non-Consensual Kissing, Relationship Issues, Weird ass time travelling, clubs, lol what are tags, non-graphic, roommate issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-28 02:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12596556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starshine_432/pseuds/Starshine_432
Summary: (I hate summaries)The trio have finally graduated high school in one piece and have now moved into their new lives as freshmen. Join Melissa, Zack and Milo as they enter a new chapter of their lives, surviving college together while being distances apart.





	The Distance Apart

The coffee shop was quiet, palliative and tranquil as it was on a usual Monday morning at 5:00AM. Melissa liked it that way. She could get some moments of peace before the moving train of busy schedules that her life had turned into the past week would kick into its gears again.

 

Mr. Palenque, a famous writer working with and for the university for the past nine to something years had peeked at her interest in the first few weeks as a freshman, the urge and drive that usually founded her motivation to know was what had inspired her to find out more about him then. Somewhere between a short-tempered, meaningless quarrel and a reluctant agreement later, she soon found herself under the constant drill that was now her life and up to a month’s load of articles and pseudo editorials, most of which she was sure wouldn’t be reviewed anyway.

 

Milo and Zack didn’t fail to call her out on how she’d been getting little to no sleep as of late, and they even resorted to suggesting they have a sleepover at her room, although the idea wasn’t all that plausible when the trio was basically scattered all over the states of America, besides Zack who was doing his music majors at some Hot shot university in Australia. He spent most of his time on Skype when he wasn’t attending one class or the other, same thing for Milo, except he was doing a whole lot more than attending classes. Mostly things related to the danger cycle that was his life, and . . . the likes.

 

Melissa took a single sip of her coffee as she found herself nearly dosing on top of her keyboard. Again. Her cup was nearly empty, and she ordered another dose, this time with a larger cup. Days like this, she found herself imagining what she’d actually be doing if Milo and Zack were with her now, if they were the unstoppable trio again, daring the world to throw its worst at them and then surviving the windstorm in the end. Melissa missed those days more than anything, even though her dad said that she would get used to the distance soon, and some stuff about time . . .

 

The sound of the little bell above the coffee shops door dinged as it opened, startling Melissa if not for a second. She checked the time on her laptop. 5:10AM. Still a bit too early for someone to be up and about in a coffee shop, although her intentions of leaving the weird chaos of a roommate are justifiable enough, she found the ominous person in the hooded coat a bit weird. Soon after he’d arrived, he went as near silent as he had come, and the fading chime of the bell left her eyebrows raised and her suspicious alarms going off in her head like sirens. It seemed like Andy, the coffee boy, had alarms going off as well if his look mirrored hers.

 

“Who was that?” She asked, although she wasn’t sure why she thought Andy would know.

 

The tan-skinned boy only shrugged and handed her the large cup of coffee which she set on her table. “No idea. Must be a freshman.” He looked like he was guessing. “Or just a guy looking for something to eat at the wee hours of the morning. It’s nothing new to find a fresh face here at least a few times a week.”

 

“I know but it’s 5:00 in the morning.”

 

“And yet you’re here.” Andy laughed a bit and she chuckled in return, her tone returning defensively.

 

“My actions are well justified Andy.” She said between a playful eye roll and went back to her work while Andy went off to his. Her attention slipped back to her half-finished article on the university’s sports programs and started another paragraph commencing with the point of the athletes last win at the football game. It wasn’t due till the next morning, but finishing earlier would give her the benefit of skimming through and editing it again as Mr. Palenque was far from pleased that he’d found that she’d veered off topic at a section of the last article she submitted.

 

An hour later she was done with the body and felt a wave of relief wash over her when all she had left to write was the concluding viewpoints and deductions. Melissa had promised to call up her friends as soon as she’d reported back from Mr. Palenque with hopefully a good review and the rare encouraging comment from the grumpy old man. And with as much time and research she’d put into this article, there was no way she wasn’t getting some kind of pass from him.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

“No.”

 

“No?”

 

“No.”

 

Melissa tried to keep herself from releasing bitter groan as the man looked sourly at her article like she’d just shown him a toddlers painting instead of a well-thought out broadsheet. She waited patiently for the man to comment on her flaws and straight out call out on her mistakes without so much as caring how she would take it, while he took off his reading glasses.

 

“Honestly Miss Chase,” He pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “I really don’t have the energy to point out all the details of how badly you disappointed me on this write up. I was expecting something clean cut, straight to the point with enough words to elucidate what exactly you were trying to explain to the audience. What you gave me was a load of garbled words about how the football team won this game and that game and then you not only veered off topic, you wandered away from the actual goal of this.” He gestured to her printed out article and then went back to her herself. “And completely ruined it.”He went on for the next ten minutes, saying how it looked like she’d copied something right off of Wikipedia without attempting to research on the sports team herself.

 

When Melissa had finally reached her dorm from his office, she’d slumped down onto her bed, face first. The idea of calling her friends right now seemed far from her then as all she wanted to do was scream a thousand obscurities into a pillow and call it a day. But the image of the last group hug the trio had done that day at the airport flashed uncalled before her mind, and before she knew it, she was picking up the phone and skyping Milo and Zack.

 

Zack came on the screen first.

 

“That was fast.” She commented with a smile, and waited while he fiddled with something on the chair he was sitting on. The background seemed like he was at the outside of the campus in what resembled a park.

 

“I know.” He chuckled. “I was actually about to call you before you did so . . .”

 

“I get it. So how’s it been? Last time you called it was 1:00 in the morning.”

 

“Still getting used to the different timelines, but it’s like 8:00AM here?” He frowned as something at the other side started playing a non-lyrical version of Young. She watched as he picked it up, stared at the screen then cut off the call, putting it back into his pocket like nothing just happened. Although she had the slightest idea.

 

“Crystal?”

 

“Who else?” He slouched downwards, the upper half of his body almost disappearing below the screen.

 

From what Melissa had collected while in her earlier months at the university, Zack had run into Crystal ‘The one that liked him apparently’, from back at middle and high school. She was seemingly attending the same college as him now, and by the next month of their first weeks, the both of them had started dating. Zack had censored the story of how they had begun dating back then, and never once gave into her prying and poking whenever she wanted to know the details. Now, Zack rarely talked about his dates with her, and cringed whenever she or Milo brought it up. She had asked what had happened between them, but he always said they were just going through ‘normal relationship problems’. Melissa knew it was more than that.

 

As Melissa was about to begin her prying session, her screen blinked with an incoming transmission, and she grinned when she saw it was Milo, covered from his head below in something slick. She didn’t bother to ask.

 

“Fell into a pool of egg yolk.” He explained. “The guys wanted to try breaking the world record of ‘World’s largest cake.” Melissa only laughed. Milo looked like he was in his apartment room, the poster of Dr. Zone, his childhood show served as a background.

 

Zack, who was on the other half of the screen called for her attention. “Is that Milo on there?” She nodded, and soon the three of them were chatting as usual about their days and how crazy their freshmen lives were now. They were all lost in their conversations that she’d almost forgotten she was going to tell them about the new article she had turned in. Apparently, Milo hadn’t forgotten.

 

“Hey Lissa,” Milo said after a while of laughing at how the living room was being filled with fifty buckets of butter. “How did that article go?”

 

Melissa’s laughter died down after that, and she shoved on a neutral expression, refusing to ruin their moment with her sour conversation with Mr. Palenque. “Nothing much really.” She shrugged. “Just the usual.”

 

“But I thought you worked really hard on that.” Zack frowned deeply, and Milo mirrored his expression.

 

“I did. And in just two days too.” She let out a tired breath and then rolled her eyes at nothing. “But what do you expect from a crabby, cranky old man like Palenque Fernandez.”

 

“Sorry Melissa.” Both boys said, and she smiled at them. “I’m fine really. He’s giving me a chance at my other articles, so I’ve not given up hope yet.”

 

“Atta girl,” Milo cheered. “I’m looking forward to the day you’ll be known as the greatest journalist in the world.”

 

“Or if that doesn’t play out, the spot for Queen of the Universe is still open.” Zack joked and the trio laughed again. Zack said that he’d call again that day, before they all went offline and she shut off her phone, feeling finally content.

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Melissa was once again having second thoughts about what she was going to wear that evening. She had been invited to a frat party outside campus by some guys at her last writing class; they said the party was going to be hot. The hottest one they’d ever had. And they needed hot girls to up the bonus.

 

Melissa had felt somewhat uncomfortable at the last statement, even more so when she found out that she was going to be the only freshman there.

 

Her crazy blonde roommate, who was never around on most days was going as well, but she was a sophomore and barely paid her any attention that she existed so asking her to keep her company at the party had been a bust. That and she had a tendency of probably getting wasted and laid on the same night. But despite her roommate’s seemingly outlandish lifestyle, she had been nice enough to borrow her something to wear when she found she hadn’t packed any clothes proper enough for her first frat party. Not that she thought it was bound to happen before she became a sophomore.

 

The dress she had been given at first was way too exposing, and the thing barely covered her behind. So she’d returned it and had wanted to stick to her normal choice of a black tee and some random pair of jeans. But her roommate, Paige, had been so insistent that she wear something ‘less embarrassing’ and had given her a new set of clothes.

 

The high-waisted pants was hugging her in ‘all the right places’ as Paige had said, and the shredded crop top she was wearing wasn’t as revealing as the dress was, but it was a bit see-through, and she didn’t feel the least bit comfortable at the prospect of people getting to see though her shirt. Especially when she was wearing her laced bra that day. And Paige simply wouldn’t let her change and was already dragging her out the dorm to where a red convertible was waiting to pick them up to the frat party. There were two guys in the car and one of them whistled as they approached.

 

“Nice digs babe.” A blonde guy, one she recognized as the quarterback of the football team had grabbed Paige by the waist and kissed her sloppily. Melissa cringed and looked away as the kiss lasted longer than she thought it would, and then proceeded to ride at the back with the other guy, a brunette from the football team who she noticed had been eyeing her since she came out while Paige rode shotgun beside her boyfriend.

 

Party! At the Disco blasted through the speakers during the ride, and Paige and the quarterback were talking and laughing about something. The brunette she didn’t know the name of tried in making a conversation with her, not so subtly inching closer to her no matter how clear she made it that she didn’t want his attention. Finally, the car had stopped in front of a two-story building, which looked really exclusive and fancy for a fraternity house, and she’d hurried out the car, ignoring the offer of the brunette escorting her into the house and walked up to the front. There was a bouncer, but he didn’t even check the list and let her in. And as she went in, she only hoped she didn’t regret coming.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing a College AU for anything so feel free to tell me what you think! Updates are going to be coming in weird time intervals until I get a normal schedule. And I apologize if there are some facts I got wrong. I haven't really watched all the new episodes yet, but this is just a fic and I don't think it should matter. (Microsoft Word is my beta.)


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